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It is always refreshing to speak to students, young professionals and mid-career executives. I find it broadens my thinking, and the group shares great ideas throughout the collaborative process. At a recent Drexel University Alumni event, I spoke to fellow attendees about how to advance their careers to the executive level. Here are eight suggestions we shared on advancing careers: Know your career objective and pursue it with vigor: If you are fortunate enough to have found your interests and passions in the workplace, do your best to understand and become an expert in the field. Determine how you can continue to advance your skills and knowledge on an ongoing basis. Competence alone won’t advance you in your career: Speak up. Ensure you ask for what you need and don’t be shy about “tooting your own horn.” You need to be noticed for a job well done; don’t assume your boss or other key leaders know what you have accomplished. Take some career development risks: It is important that you take charge of your career. Be proactive. Have discussions with your boss about what you’d like to do next. Partner with him or her and develop recommendations on your next steps. Make it easy for your supervisor to say “yes” and help you move to the next level. Network, network, network: You should network even if you are not looking for a new job. Networking can expand your thinking – learn what others are...

I recently read a very interesting piece by Jean Martin, a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review: For Senior Leaders, Fit Matters More than Skill. Jean writes about the need to evaluate an executive’s “network fit” when considering him or her for hire. By “network fit,” she means “how well the potential hire will fit with the way his or her new colleagues work.” This is distinctly different from “cultural fit,” which predicts how well the executive will align with the corporate culture more broadly. Jean points out that executives who fail often do so because of a problem with “network fit.” She goes on to examine whether internal recruiters are better able to sense network fit when compared to external search partners. I think it’s fair to say that she doesn’t think either party does a particularly good job on this critical aspect of evaluating external executives for key leadership positions. The article got me thinking – always dangerous – so I thought I would share a couple of reactions. First – the obvious. You can’t evaluate network fit if you haven’t met the network! For all of our searches, we try to meet as many stakeholders as possible when we begin the search. It takes time to do this, and sometimes clients push back, wondering why it matters. We generally are pretty insistent about this step in the process. We have always known how important chemistry is with the team; if you...

It may be a little bit late, but nonetheless, I am announcing my New Year’s Resolutions for 2014. I will stop creating retaliatory traffic problems for my rival colleagues near my office by moving the big plant outside my door into the middle of the hallway. If it becomes necessary to create that bottleneck, I will not send an email to my assistant asking her to move the plant for me. I will stop waiting for the sky to fall every time there is a weak jobs report. I will convince myself that we will never have another recession as severe as the last. I will put a small amount of the money I buried in my garden back into the bank. At some point. I will take Twitter more seriously. I will submit at least one proposal response to an RFP in the language of Farsi, just to see if anyone notices. I will agree with everyone who tells me that LinkedIn is going to put us out of business. I will never say “I told you so” when they call in two months in need of immediate help on a search. I will stop explaining the business model of retained executive search to well-meaning people who do me the “favor” of sending me resumes of their unemployed friends and neighbors. I will submit my blog entries in a timely manner to She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed so I don’t have to resort to listing my New Year’s Resolutions...

With “Say-on-Pay” and Dodd-Frank being practically household names, perhaps it is time for a 101 version in case you missed it. With the financial crisis in 2008, the United States government developed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which was set up to buy assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen the financial sector. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008, and it was a component of the government’s measures to address the subprime mortgage crisis. TARP originally authorized expenditures of $700 billion. Out of this same financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) was born, with its fundamental purpose being to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It also reduced the amount authorized by TARP to $475 billion. Barney Frank has described TARP as “highly successful and wildly unpopular.” Fundamentally, over several years, tons of risk was being taken in the housing market by financial institutions that did not suffer any consequences. These actions created significant economic change, which required a BIG change in legislation. Translation: loans were made by people who were going to sell the loan, with the incentive being to issue many loans with little concern for borrowers’ ability to pay them back. Not a good thing. We saw the Lehman failure followed by the AIG failure. None of the debts for Lehman were paid, while “all” of the debts for AIG were paid. However,...

One of the wonderful opportunities in being part of a global association is the chance to meet and build relationships with others around the world. Through Salveson Stetson Group’s affiliation with IIC Partners, we have joined annual meetings in interesting places; last year, our meeting was in Thailand, and this year we met in Ireland. I was excited about visiting Ireland, as I heard it is called the Land of 1000 Welcomes. I thought that was just a nice slogan made up by a marketing firm, but I was wrong. It truly is very fitting! I’ve highlighted a few thoughts on what I learned during my visit in Ireland: Yes, it does rain or drizzle often, which makes the landscape very green. However, the sun does shine as well! We were fortunate during our trip to have enjoyed sun-filled mornings. The pubs are the best places to meet people. Of course, we had to test this out, and test we did. The locals go out of their way to talk to you, give you suggestions of places to visit and are filled with pride to show you the country. They are great ambassadors. Irish dancing truly is what it’s cracked up to be. I was amazed at how exciting it was to watch them. It looks like a great form of exercise, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself so I only observed – maybe next time. The taxi drivers in...

This article originally ran on CFO.com. To view it, click here. For CFOs who may be of a mind to hook up with a private equity-backed company, open your eyes wide and tread very carefully. When speaking with senior financial executives about their career aspirations, the conversation often turns to a desire to work for a private equity-backed company. I am talking about a large majority of respondents here – at least 70 percent. When I ask why, the answer invariably focuses on the opportunity to participate in a transaction and the potential financial rewards to be reaped by doing so. That is a pretty naïve answer. For every success story out there in private equity-backed firms, there are many more failures. Working in private equity is difficult, particularly for a CFO. Any financial officer contemplating making this type of move for the first time in his or her career must to go into it with eyes wide open. At a bare minimum, consider the following: 1. Not all private equity sponsors are created equal. The industry is not monolithic. In addition to industry specialization, private equity differentiates by what type of asset each firm considers. Is the firm buying the asset to clean up the balance sheet and quickly turn it over? Is the investment for long-term growth? Does the private equity firm have a habit of breaking up the companies in which it invests? CFOs contemplating such a move should investigate how the private equity...

Relying on economists for predictions about the tone of our economy can be a frustrating business. After all, everyone knows the First Law of Economics: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist. The Second Law is that they are both wrong. So what’s a person – who works in a business that is intimately tied to the economy, but who never once stepped foot in the business school during both his undergraduate and graduate school years – to do? Rely on unscientific, subjective information, of course. So here is my hot-off-the-press amateur assessment of the economy: things are improving. Here’s my case: We just closed a search in which the placement received a sizable counter-offer from his employer when he went in to resign. They are a professional services firm that is swamped with work. The line at Starbucks is definitely getting longer. I met a very senior-level executive last week who decided to leave a high-paying job, purely voluntarily, so she could conduct a job search to take a different direction in her career. We recently closed two search assignments for a client company with candidates who had multiple offers in hand, leading to a mini bidding war. I do not consider it idiotic that I am buying organic, boutique food for my cats. Our firm is hiring again, for the first time in about five years. The new iPhone just sold about 100 million jillion units in 23...

We have a robust Human Resources Practice and, as a result, have had the opportunity to interact with many HR executives. The most common questions that come from executives who aspire to move into their first Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) role involve what it takes to be offered that top job. What do they have to do to be considered a strong and viable candidate? As you can imagine, every company has different perspectives and needs based on their business. But there are some critical competencies you must possess to be seriously considered for the top HR role at any organization: Emotional Intelligence: First and foremost, you need to have outstanding interpersonal and communication skills. However, that is not all. You must also be a great listener, be trustworthy and authentic in your interactions with others. Effective Leader: Do you attract, retain and develop a team effectively? Do other colleagues want to work with and for you? Are you seen as a mentor to others? In addition, are you viewed as an effective leader across the company with your peers? Do other members in the C-Suite seek you out for advice and counsel? Driver of Change: The head of HR typically is sought after to drive change across an organization; therefore, do you effectively communicate with others about the rationale for change and help influence others to “get on the change bus”? If you encounter resistance, do you know how to regroup and try...

Our firm is a member of IIC Partners, one of the top 10 retained executive search groups in the world with 46 offices in 35 countries. Several months ago, I volunteered to lead a work group to conduct IIC’s first-ever global survey. The topic we chose was succession planning and we will be able to share what we believe will be some very interesting results in the fall. The survey was drafted, vetted and ready to go by mid-June. The plan was to invite participation during July. Throughout this project, I have learned quite a bit about cultural differences, language, gender bias and various other nuances of trying to get a group of 10 people from 10 different countries to agree on survey questions. Let’s just say I understand now why the United Nations needs such a big building in New York – and a peace-keeping force. But we soldiered on and the survey went live. That’s when I learned about another cultural difference: working in the summer. Some of our partner firms flat-out told us that they essentially close their businesses for the better part of either July or August. Business slows to a trickle over the summer months and most of their clients are gone. That’s just the way it is. Then there are the people who are on holiday/vacation/leave – call it what you like. They have messages that say that they will be out of the office until...

There are many things I love about the Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia’s children museum. One of my favorite activities is its End of the Day Parade, a daily tradition where staff members and colorful characters wander through the museum with instruments, encouraging children and their families to follow them. They march around the museum and eventually out the main door. This parade is an orderly process that allows the children and their families to end a day of play and learning in a fun way without tantrums, tears and resistance. It is brilliant! I have always wondered if the End of the Day Parade would be effective in the workplace. Change and transitions are disconcerting for everyone – children and adults alike. HR executives are constantly focused on leading change management initiatives, attempting to determine approaches that may help the organization and its employees navigate through shifts in strategy, organizational redesigns, restructurings and adapting to new leaders. During times of change, many questions emerge, including: What messages do we need to reinforce and how often do they need to be repeated? Are leaders clear on the direction they are going? Which employees or key talent need to be communicated with and how do you ensure their “buy-in” to the changes? How do we retain top talent under times of uncertainty? How do we coach managers and leaders to ensure consistent messages and themes are being stated? What obstacles will we face and how will...